Deluxe Grow Box on the left, A Garden Patch’s Grow Box on the right. I am simultaneously a lover and hater of gimmicky garden tools, especially items that purport to make gardening easier. Gardening is already easy, so a lot of garden products get a big eye roll from me. Whenever I heard gardeners talk about sub-irrigation planters like the Grow Box I had to roll my eyes. I mean, just how bad of a gardener do you have to be that a traditional container, or even a repurposed one, doesn’t suffice? For a while I wondered just how easy this products made container gardening and growing vegetables. How much different were they from the DIY sub-irrigation planters I’ve seen gardeners make. Full Post…

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Young and young at heart urban gardeners in North Lawndale garden tour
Last month I had the pleasure of attending the North Lawndale Greening Committee’s garden tour.  It was a change from doing the North Dearborn Garden Walk. The gardens themselves weren’t much different, larger mostly, but the vibe was noticeably different. This garden tour was like visiting the gardens of friends you’ve known a long time. Among the gardens we toured where backyard gardens, a community garden, a garden built on an empty lot, the African heritage garden and the preSERVE garden. The preSERVE community garden in North Lawndale is a new urban greening effort. Full Post…

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  This summer Chicagoans have been treating community gardens like personal food banks.  After spending their summer carefully cultivating fruits, herbs and vegetables, some community gardeners are being beaten to the harvest by vegetable thieves. While not as expensive as rubies, diamonds and emeralds, these tomatoes, cucumbers and melons are just as tempting and pricey. Heirloom plants and seeds that are all the rage can be more expensive than recent cultivars. These plants that new community gardeners favor sell for top dollar at farmers markets around Chicago. Then there are also the costs associated with being a member of a community garden. In allot Full Post…

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No. It does not. Leeds Castle gets enormous and well-deserved publicity as ‘the lovliest castle in England’ and is crowded with visitors paying £17.50 each in 2010. My guide book says the garden is Grade II listed. If correct, this is ridiculous. The designed landscape around the castle should be Grade I+++ listed. The riverside garden and the Culpepper Garden (supposedly designed by Russell Page) are mediocre. But why? With such a host of visitors the Leeds Castle Foundation must have a sufficiency of funds. I would not criticise the design if it were a public park in run-down town in a depressed part of the English Midlands. But

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